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Solo: A Star Wars Story Confirms Death of Phantom Menace Character

Solo: A Star Wars Story reveals that Aurra Sing, a bounty hunter and assassin who appeared in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and briefly in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, was killed by Woody Harrelson's roguish criminal Tobias Beckett. The movie, which was directed by Ron Howard, explores the early years of Han Solo and is set about ten years before the start of A New Hope, putting it squarely in the middle of the gap between the original Star Wars trilogy and the prequel trilogy.

Aurra Sing's backstory was extensively detailed in the Star Wars Expanded Universe comics, now branded Star Wars Legends, but those are no longer canon, so the version of the character that is referenced in Solo is the Aurra that we saw in The Clone Wars. In that series, Aurra was a ruthless killer who teamed up with other bounty hunters like Bossk and the young Boba Fett, and she was a formidable antagonist with a talent for survival. Unfortunately for Aurra, it seems her luck eventually ran out.

When Tobias Beckett meets Lando Calrissian in Solo, Lando comments that he's heard of Beckett, and that he heard Beckett was responsible for killing Aurra Sing. In response, Beckett jokes that he's the guy who pushed Aurra, but he's pretty sure that the fall killed her. Lando then offers to cut Beckett a special deal by way of thanks, since he'd owed Aurra a lot of money and her untimely death was a neat way of clearing his debts. That's the last we hear of Aurra in the movie, but it confirms that she died some time before 10BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin).

A tie-in comic for Solo: A Star Wars Story, titled Star Wars: Beckett, is set for release on August 15, 2018, and will explore the character's backstory - as well as his connection to the fierce marauder Enfys Nest. Given the tease in the movie, it wouldn't be surprising if the comic showed Beckett's fatal clash with Aurra Sing. It's also worth keeping an eye out this week for the first issue of the tie-in comic series Star Wars: Lando: Double or Nothing, which could also feature an appearance by Aurra - and explain how Lando ended up so deep in her debt.

Fans of The Clone Wars may be disappointed by Aurra being handed an off-screen death (ruling out the possibility of her making an appearance in Star Wars: Episode IX), but perhaps we'll see her again in the upcoming Boba Fett movie, given the relationship between the two characters. And who knows - perhaps Beckett didn't kill Aurra after all. It wouldn't be the first time she managed to escape what looks like a certain death.